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View Poll Results: Should be lower the K bonus for pitchers from 1 point to 0.5

Scoring change proposal #2 - changing pitcher bonus for Ks

The proposal is that we reduce the award for strike outs (for pitchers) from a full point to 0.5. This is in an effort to reduce (not eliminate) the disparity between pitching scoring and offense scoring.

If you are looking for data, Eric was kind enough to take the time and put it together in this thread beginning with this post.

Re: Scoring change proposal #2 - changing pitcher bonus for Ks

Originally Posted by ChrisRo

Voted No. I'd rather reduce the disparity by awarding hitters more, than taxing dominating pitchers. I really hope this does not go through.

It seemed the general idea was to go with lessening the pitchers award rather than taking away the batters penalty. If this doesn't go through, we could still go the other way if the league wants that.

Re: Scoring change proposal #2 - changing pitcher bonus for Ks

Originally Posted by ChrisRo

Voted No. I'd rather reduce the disparity by awarding hitters more, than taxing dominating pitchers. I really hope this does not go through.

Oooh my favorite topic!

Defend a strikeout being 2x as valuable as a ground-out or fly-out. (Then I will counter with statistics that show that a strikeout is only 1.25x more valuable than a non-strikeout, and we are proposing making it 1.50x more valuable).

In looking at our scoring system, Sutcliffe, with 10 more wins, outscored Clemens by just 43 points (Or 4.3 points per win, and a win is worth 5 points!)

Clemens actually outscored Burkett, even though Burkett had 12 more wins!

BUT...if we make K's a half a point, the totals are:

Clemens, 508.5 points
Sutcliffe, 573.5 points
Burkett, 542.5 points

Personally, I think Burkett, with his 22 wins, should earn more points than Clemens, with his 10 wins. And dropping K's to half a point, while balancing out hitting with pitching, would also balance out this example, too.

Last edited by Big_E; 06-28-11 at 02:26 PM.
Reason: added points per our current scoring system

Re: Scoring change proposal #2 - changing pitcher bonus for Ks

Re: Scoring change proposal #2 - changing pitcher bonus for Ks

Without data on how it would impact the league's scoring (vs. other proposals and ideas), and without information on what else would/wouldn't be changed, I don't feel I can vote either way on this in good conscience. It seems this is trying to be rammed through without having all the data, and if that's what people want, that's fine I suppose, but I'm not going to be voting either way in that case.

Re: Scoring change proposal #2 - changing pitcher bonus for Ks

Originally Posted by Hitman23

I linked everyone to the data that Eric posted in the scoring change ideas thread right in the first post. It's based on 2010 stats and I think it's pretty clear.

As I alluded to in that thread (and in my previous post), it also didn't cover the other proposals (eliminating batter K penalties and leaving pitchers at 1, for instance, among others). It seems like this is the course that it's been decided we're voting on, though. Don't worry, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it; I just wish the scoring change discussion had been handled more thoroughly than this. All we know from E's data is that taking away points from pitchers makes batters more valuable, which is obvious. You'd probably get similar results if you reduced wins to 2 points or outs to half a point or did a whole host of other things. It doesn't tell us what kind of pitchers are going to be the top scorers, etc. For instance, in E's example above, I think that Clemens had the best individual season based solely on those numbers (W-L, ERA, Ks), but he'd lose a ton of value based on this. This is really the only option we've been given for whatever reason, and I think people are voting yes more based on the abstract concept of balancing pitchers and hitters than the specifics of how best to do so.

I'm probably not going to be back again next season anyway, so it probably won't impact me, but as a member for so many years, I care about what happens to this league in the future. I just think that a lot of ideas were thrown out there and one has been promoted to the top for some reason without an investigation of the impact of that idea (or any of the other ideas.) To be clear, I'm not saying that this certainly isn't the best solution, just that I think we have no clue at this point and we're just voting for the sake of voting because the poll has been started.

Re: Scoring change proposal #2 - changing pitcher bonus for Ks

So you think that K's are so valuable that Clemens had the best season, even though he won half as many games as Rick Sutcliffe (NL CYA winner that year) and John Burkett?

No offense, but this dumbfounds me.

Without looking at any other numbers, yes. I think wins are a silly way to evaluate how well a pitcher pitched individually. If that was the only information I had, and I was starting that season again (or the next season), Clemens would easily be the first guy I'd pick from that list, and that's true even without the name recognition.

Re: Scoring change proposal #2 - changing pitcher bonus for Ks

Originally Posted by Soriambi

Without looking at any other numbers, yes. I think wins are a silly way to evaluate how well a pitcher pitched individually. If that was the only information I had, and I was starting that season again (or the next season), Clemens would easily be the first guy I'd pick from that list, and that's true even without the name recognition.

I think K's are an even more ridiculous way to assess a pitcher, because K's are almost always meaningless as compared with other outs. At least a win means the team won.

Re: Scoring change proposal #2 - changing pitcher bonus for Ks

Perhaps we value Ks too highly. Perhaps we value batter Ks too highly. Perhaps we value wins too highly. Perhaps we value outs too highly. Perhaps we value QS too highly. Perhaps we don't value various hitting statistics enough. The issue is that we're not really looking into any of this and a taking a detailed look at what impact various ideas would have on the league (except for the Ks a little bit). I think you keep trying to change the argument.

Re: Scoring change proposal #2 - changing pitcher bonus for Ks

Originally Posted by Soriambi

Perhaps we value Ks too highly. Perhaps we value batter Ks too highly. Perhaps we value wins too highly. Perhaps we value outs too highly. Perhaps we value QS too highly. Perhaps we don't value various hitting statistics enough. The issue is that we're not really looking into any of this and a taking a detailed look at what impact various ideas would have on the league (except for the Ks a little bit). I think you keep trying to change the argument.

No I am not. My argument for YEARS has been that we should not reward K's. But I have been consistently shot down. I still believe that, but am willing to make K's worth 0.5 points as a compromise.

Re: Scoring change proposal #2 - changing pitcher bonus for Ks

No I am not. My argument for YEARS has been that we should not reward K's. But I have been consistently shot down. I still believe that, but am willing to make K's worth 0.5 points as a compromise.

What I meant was that you're changing my argument, or just not getting what I'm saying. Sax seems to have understood, though. I really appreciate that work, Sax. Of those options, I think I do like the Ks to .5 best, though I'm still curious as to what would happen to batters by eliminating the offensive K penalty and leaving Ks at 1 or eliminating the offensive K penalty AND switching Ks to .5. I'm interested in balance here, but I'm also interested in the scoring change that makes the most sense baseball stats-wise. I don't think E is necessarily wrong about Ks being overvalued at 1, but I also think (at this point, as I think I was the one who originally implemented it many moons ago) that batter Ks are inappropriately penalized.